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Judicial Ethics, The Appearance Of Impropriety, And The Proposed New Aba Judicial Code, Ronald D. Rotunda

Ronald D. Rotunda

We sometimes think, loosely, that ethics is good and that therefore more is better than less. But more is not better than less, if the more exacts higher costs, measured in terms of vague rules that impose unnecessary and excessive burdens. Overly-vague ethics rules impose costs on the judicial system and the litigants, which we should weigh when determining whether to impose ill-defined and indefinite ethics prohibitions on judges. Unnecessarily imprecise ethics rules allow and tempt critics, with minimum effort, to levy a plausible and serious charge that the judge has violated the ethics rules. Overuse not only invites abuse …